The present invention relates to noise suppression or filtering in an electronic device. While applicable to all electronic devices, the present invention is particularly applicable to portable electronic devices because of their size and physical feature constraints.
There has been a continual effort to develop new features and improve existing features performed by electronic devices. The features may include, but are not limited to, communication, document production, information storage and retrieval, navigation, entertainment, etc. This effort has been at least in part promoted by advances in integrated circuit technology that have produced more powerful processing circuitry. As the complexity of integrated circuits increased, however, the need to adequately cool these devices also increased. While various approaches have been brought forth, cooling by electric fan is the most common technique for integrated circuit and overall electronic device cooling.
While beneficial as a cooling mechanism, conventional fans are disadvantageous in that they produce audible noise at frequencies that are unpleasant to the human ear. While a problem in desk top environments, such as in a desk top computer, the problem is more acute in portable electronic devices. One reason for this is that components are more tightly coupled in a portable device leading to thermal build up. In addition, due to their limited size and weight it is generally more difficult to design new features (such as noise suppression) into a portable device.
Hence a need exists for suppressing or reducing noise generated by the cooling mechanism of an electronic device.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to reduce or filter noise generated by a cooling mechanism of an electronic device.
It is another object of the present invention to reduce or filter noise generated by a cooling mechanism of a portable electronic device.
It is another object of the present invention to provide noise reduction that filters out frequencies that are unpleasant to a human ear.
It is also an object of the present invention to create a mechanism or structure in a cooling mechanism output path that absorbs, compresses or otherwise attenuates sound waves of particular frequencies.
These and related objects of the present invention are achieved by use of a acoustic filter apparatus of an electronic device as described herein.
The attainment of the foregoing and related advantages and features of the invention should be more readily apparent to those skilled in the art, after review of the following more detailed description of the invention taken together with the drawings.